


First I Learned the Crawl, Then Some Other Strokes.  I Can Never Remember Any Real Good Jokes.

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A meditation on physical and spiritual mortality, Alcohol, Drunk Sex, Dubious scientific assertions, Gen, Implied cruelty to animals, M/M, disguised as a simple story about two mad scientists fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:27:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7207790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The naughty nineties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First I Learned the Crawl, Then Some Other Strokes.  I Can Never Remember Any Real Good Jokes.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from the song Like Swimming, by Morphine.  
> A companion piece to "Cocktail". Someday, I'll write something that turns somebody's crank other than my own. That day is not today.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

91  
These things are deadly. The least they could do is have them someplace other than Gotham. The city's a sewer. Apparently, the purpose of staging these conventions there is to convince the citizens that they are not, in fact, actually standing in a sewer, at all. It is a garden. It is a paradise. It is an Eden in concrete. The hotel's nice enough, anyway. The bar is certainly well-stocked. The air is cool, and perfumed with what can only be described as the scent of luxury. It's sweet, but not cloying; it awakens the body to hunger and anticipation. Look through the window, though, and you're confronted by the same stain of soot and filth that you face everyday.  
Why did he ever come here? His professional associates all told him that Gotham was a booming market for his particular talents. Metropolis was full of old money, and even older ideas. One might earn a good living there, but at the cost of enduring the immense boredom of cutting the same flesh in the same ways. If you wanted nothing more than to grow rich and lazy, straightening crooked noses and manicuring slackening jaws, it was the perfect place. If, however, you wanted more than that- or than the quiet, solemn respect you could get back home, undoing the effects of calamities, both accidental and congenital- you had to go elsewhere. Gotham, he was told, was where the advances were being made. The enthusiastic articles he read seemed to bear this out. The money was there to be had, for anyone bold enough to put into words the desires that pulsated just below the skin. Eternal youth. Perfect beauty. Cosmetic procedures for the interior, as well as the exterior. The blood of the young pumping beneath old skin, tricking the body into believing that it was still vital, loosed from the bonds of obsolescence.  
The problem, as always, was of puncturing the right spot to make all of that desire, and the money it brought, flow freely. It was fine and good to offer toothsome fantasies- quite another to make people actually believe in them, pay for them. The grind of what they call 'networking' was, Francis soon found, constant in Gotham. One had to be seen. To be seen to fit into a set. To be seen to be one of them. Though, Francis still isn't sure who they might be. Gotham certainly has wealthy families, but he can hardly go door-to-door, asking to do any stray cosmetic procedures that might be required. The first, and the dirtiest, step is being seen by his fellows. Hence the conventions. This is, what- his fifth time at this particular gathering? They all blend together, a slurry of champagne and business cards. The only difference is what drugs are being taken. In such a short time, there's already been a change, as tastes shifted from cocaine to designer drugs to the now ubiquitous antidepressants. In those early years, when everyone had been compulsively optimistic, it had seemed like only a matter of time before his ship would come in. There he's remained, though, standing on the shore. He doesn't want for clients; just for- he's not sure. What he is certain of, though, is that he can't take this particular gathering much longer. He'll endure for a few moments more, then make his excuses, go back to work. Most of which, he's obliged to do at home- if only to avoid tense scenes and nasty conversations about experimenting on animals. Better, then, that he should skip immediately to human subjects? People don't get so precious about animals when one explains the alternative.  
It's not been totally fruitless. He's seen the competition. Some familiar faces. Some newcomers. Who's had done work of their own. Who's gotten clean. Who's just embarked upon a habit. Who's been doing well. Who probably won't be around next year. They must stick together, if only by coming together once a year to stare down their noses at one another. They're all outside of respectable medicine. They cater to peoples' desires- whether it's for a tighter ass or another ten years of life- and when you get into that business, you leave behind the privilege of being understood. Desire's never understood. How can it be? To anyone but the one who holds it, it's ugly, alien, excessive.  
There's someone Francis doesn't recognize. Francis is about to make a joke that no one will appreciate, about the dangers of leaving children unattended, but there's no one actually around to hear it. He might as well go and say it to the boy, himself.  
Though, even Francis must concede that 'boy's a bit much. The man is young, certainly, but this isn't a place for beginners.  
Francis looks around, sees an acquaintance. “Do you know who that is?” Francis asks, nodding toward the stranger.  
“His name is Strange.”  
“What's so strange about it?” Though, it could be anything; people have a hard enough time with 'Dulmacher'. He's certainly seen every conceivable way of spelling it.  
“No,” she rolls her eyes, takes in a long breath through her nose, “His name is Hugo Strange.”  
His laugh even sounds to him like a horse's whinny, but he's too anesthetized to care. She gives her eyes another revolution, then with an elaborate motion of her neck, drifts off.  
Francis gets another drink, and lets himself drift toward Hugo Strange.  
He is exquisite. His bone structure. The quality of his skin. If Francis were slightly drunker, he'd just reach out and touch. There's still time.  
“What do you do?” Francis asks.  
“Pardon me,” says Strange in a deliciously bored voice, “but do I know you?”  
“Francis Dulmacher,” he says.  
Strange lifts his eyes in a show of searching his recollections, and then brings them down again to meet Francis'. “No. I don't know who you are.”  
“I know who you are.”  
“You can't know me that well, because you just came over and asked for my credentials.”  
“One has to start a conversation, somehow. I was going to ask around to see who'd brought their son and left him on his own, but that wouldn't have done at all.”  
Strange's face shifts into an irritable frown. “Who are you?” Strange asks.  
“I just told you.”  
“Yes, but how did you get in here? Surely, you're aware that this is a gathering of medical professionals. You, however, seem to have gotten lost on your way to a public restroom. If you'll excuse me.”  
And then, Strange is gone. Francis smiles, the sparkling rictus of one who can no longer feel his face. Delightful.

92  
He has to remember not to drink so much at these occasions. If the waiter will keep bringing around champagne, though, what else is he to do? What else is he to do, here, period? All anyone can talk about this year is leaky breast implants. It's beyond dull. Francis has managed to successfully graft the leg of one mouse onto another after amputation- but he knows from some casual conversational prodding that no one's interested in anything other than mammary glands. It's disheartening. Frankly, it's baffling. Are they not scientists?  
At least one of them still is, aside from Francis. In the intervening year, Francis has had time to find out who Hugo Strange is, and what he does. WellZyn, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises took him on a few years ago, in Research and Development. He's a psychiatrist, with a concentration in neuroplasticity and sleep disorders. So, what's he doing with a bunch of plastic surgeons? Perhaps he's studying surgical addiction. Academic writing is so faddish: someone writes an article about something that hasn't been worn into the ground, and suddenly, everyone else is lining up to say more or less the same things, insisting that the horse was very much alive when they began to whip it.  
Francis snags another glass of champagne, drinks it with the ease of the inebriated, and deposits the empty flute on the tray of a passing waiter.  
“Hello, Mr. Strange,” he says sunnily.  
Strange turns around, regards him from behind spectacles. Those are new. He didn't have them last year. They make him look like a librarian.  
“Do I know you?”  
“We met, last year. Francis Dulmacher.”  
“Oh. So, I take it that you never found what you were looking for.”  
“What's that?”  
“Just that, when you last approached me, last year, you looked for all the world like a man searching for a gloryhole.”  
As he laughs, he feels his head tip back. Oh, that feels good. “You're very amusing.”  
“You're not,” Strange exhales audibly, “I see someone I'd much rather talk to. Good day.”  
It should be a disappointment, but it's not. Anything done well is a joy- even a rebuke. Francis has some more champagne. And some more. And then, once the gathering's worn down, and there's no one around to notice, he has the waiter.

93  
Less champagne, this time. Not just for him, for everyone. Apparently, last year, there was a brawl in the parking lot- how on earth did he miss that?- so, the waiters become scarcer as the hours pass, until they vanish completely. Perhaps, soon, they'll just lock the doors on the reception, and simply gas them all.  
Sobriety's so annoying. It makes one do all sorts of stupid things. Francis sees Hugo Strange, and... hesitates. No, he'll go over. He will. But, first, let him find an employee and ask him the way to the hotel bar.

94  
When the invitation comes, he regards it for a long time. Why does he keep going to these things? No one talks to him. Correspondingly, he has nothing to say to his fellows. He listens to the speakers, collects some very bland pamphlets about drugs he's already read about, ad nauseum. Drinks too much. Last year was the worst. He's still not sure how he got home. The bartender must have thrown him into a taxi.  
He tears the invitation into neat strips, and throws it away.

95  
Apparently, they've learned their lesson. The invitation actually says 'open bar' in large embossed letters. He's heard that a lot of people had the same idea as he and just didn't attend, last year.  
Why not go, this year? Francis believes in second chances.  
The organizational committee suitably chastened, there's a grand bar spanning the length of the far wall. It's apparently been provided by the Wayne company. A very pretty young woman hands Francis his drink. Her name tag says 'Maria'.  
“Thank you, my dear,” he says.  
“My pleasure,” she replies, with the studied flirtation of the service industry.  
“What beautiful eyes you have,” he says, just to see what will happen.  
She looks him up and down. “You're not so bad, yourself.”  
Francis looks at the other servers. They're all similarly young and attractive. How interesting.  
But not, ultimately, that interesting. Wayne Enterprises has more or less turned it into a promotional event for WellZyn. They're all drowning in printed material about WellZyn's products. The star of the show is some supposedly revolutionary sedative called ATP. Francis takes the literature he's given, and after glancing at it, leaves it on a table. It's all so much glittering trash, between the glossy brochures and the accommodating waitstaff, and the Wayne company is obviously counting on making back, several times over, the money spent on R&D, this event, and the entertainment. If one finds diverting the machinations of multi-national companies, it must be a satisfying intrigue, but Francis gets more and more bored every year with the moving parts at the intersection of medicine, commerce, politics, and crime.  
Oh, look- it's Hugo Strange. Francis smiles slightly. Unfortunately, unlike the bartenders and waiters Strange is probably not for sale. Though, really, it wouldn't hurt him to encourage interest. If nothing else, it would ground him in some grubby reality or other. For now, he's still wretchedly free; an appealingly ubiquitous tool without a discernible use. Francis still isn't sure of what it is, exactly, that the man's doing- here, or at the Wayne Company.  
“Did you put this together?” he asks, sitting down next to Strange.  
“My qualifications are in psychiatry and neuroscience, Mr. Dulmacher; not party planning.”  
“I'm pleased you remember my name. I'm also pleased to see you here. I've wanted, for some time, to get to know you better.”  
“You don't know me, at all, Mr. Dulmacher.” He begins to stand.  
Francis places a hand on his arm. “Please. Please do stay. I truly would like to talk to you.”  
Strange narrows his eyes. “What about?”  
“Tell me about ATP.”  
“I'm not an employee of a public relations agency, either.”  
“So, tell me, what exactly do you do, and did you work on this project?”  
“Of course I did.”  
“What distinguishes ATP, then, from other drugs on the market.”  
Strange rolls his eyes. “It's metabolized more rapidly. When used in conjunction with general anesthesia, it reduces the frequency of post-surgical neurological reactions. Surely, you could read all of this in the press release.”  
“Of course I could, but you've said yourself that my interest in you is extracurricular.”  
“Oh. That. What is the origin of this obsession with me?”  
“I wouldn't call it an obsession.”  
“What would you call it, then? A fixation, perhaps?”  
“You have beautiful bones.”  
Strange smiles slightly, laughs a little. “That's certainly novel.”  
“I'm a plastic surgeon; I notice things like this.”  
“Oh, of course.”  
“What sort of skincare regimen do you follow- or is it, perhaps, good genes?”  
“And how could I resist a set-up like that?”  
“Don't mistake me- I truly am interested.”  
“In what soap I use to wash my face? How amusing.”  
“I've had some promising results with vasodilators- for, you know, maintaining the circulation of blood is always the most crucial element, post-surgically-” he's rambling, he knows, but he never gets to really talk to anyone, and bored though he may be, Hugo at least has the capacity to appreciate how far Francis has come. Even if he'd never say so. “As is the constant introduction of fresh blood. I mean, new blood. Blood that is vital, young.”  
“Oh, like the Hungarian countess who used to bathe in the blood of young women? I've heard that you entertain some eccentric ideas, but I must admit, you surprise me.”  
“What else have you heard about me?”  
“Nothing else, really. But do continue. I believe that your next move was to attempt to lure me to some secluded locale, the better to exsanguinate me. Or, perhaps, to fashion yourself a suit from my skin. How diabolical.”  
“No. Not that, at all. In order to improve upon nature, one must first learn to mimic it. If I see someone so-” Oh, to hell with it, “so beautiful, I must study them.”  
“So, you think that nature can be improved upon.”  
“So must you, if you'd come here.”  
“I think that it must be overthrown, all together.” Now, Hugo is very grave, and there's a sudden darkness in his eyes that thrills Francis down to his bones.  
“Must it.”  
“Oh, yes,” Hugo says, with a smile that Francis can only describe as delighted, “Surgery- even experimental surgery- has natural limits. Switching out a disused part for a new one. As though humans were like any other machine,” he tuts.  
“What are we, if not machines? Not made in God's image, surely.”  
“Why not? If God made you, and you make people over, to fit their ideal, but also, as testament to your skill, is it not the original procedure in miniature?”  
“Come to bed with me.”  
“I don't think so,” Hugo says, now composed again. Chilled. He stands, so that he's just far enough above Francis to look down on him, “And considering your opinion of yourself, you seem as though you'd derive far more satisfaction from self-abuse.”  
He's gone, and Francis slumps in his seat. “That's the pot calling the kettle a narcissist,” he mutters.

96  
Why does he keep doing this to himself? He doesn't even live in Gotham anymore. Finally, he got himself together sufficiently to seriously look into properties upstate. It was really the only thing to do. The city is no place for a scientist. Altogether too many people around. Looking. His practice is still in Gotham of course, but it's a glorified showroom. The clients have their consultations there, but the actual procedures are done close to home. He's giving serious thought to finding a piece of land large enough to accommodate both his clinic and his residence, but there's time for that, yet. There's a developing trend toward medical spas, but one never knows how these things will work out. The new silhouette is slim, almost juvenile, and the public's suddenly come over squeamish about cosmetic procedures. Cutting is out. Injections and strange diets are in.  
Still, this is where he comes to learn about trends. People seem to like collagen. A few years ago, it was marginal, considered almost barbaric, but now, it's as acceptable as liposuction. Very few know that it's dug out of corpses. Francis prefers it from a living body. One can always tell the difference. That harvested from the dead lies dull and custardy under the skin. Though, of course, it's interesting to play with the idea of finding a way to turn life back on after it's been shut off; make the dead stuff again thrum with life. Ultimately, though, one can only play with it. Nature will be improved upon, but it won't be cheated. Luckily, it can also, at times, be fooled.  
He's heard curious things about Hugo Strange. Stories about desperately poor people from the streets of Gotham submitting to bizarre procedures at the hands of a masked doctor in an anonymous lab in some hidden location. Promises of eternal life in manipulated cells. Parts of other species patched on seamlessly. Obviously, they don't know his name, and can't describe him, but it has an unmistakable whiff of Strange, and more to the point, Wayne Enterprises, about it. The place is a hazard- for all the marketable ideas it produces, it also expels an alarming number of very erratic personalities. Every five years or so, one of them does something stupid in public, and the lawyers must be wound up and set running. It makes them all look bad. It makes Gotham look bad- a nest of foulness, incompetence, and fortune-hunters. Which, of course, it is.  
Yet, here Francis is, among them. The Wayne company must be doing preemptive damage control; this is another of their functions. The staff is just as edible as last year, and the security, more conspicuous. It's supposed to bespeak luxury, but it just looks cheap to Francis. For the first time in a long time, he misses home. Would it have been so bad to become a researcher? To live a life devoted to theory? Yes, of course, it would have. To think, to conjecture, to gather information, to hypothesize- but to never know- what could be more distasteful? Gotham's a place where life is liquid and cheap; it passes easily through the membrane of the city. One never lacks for opportunities to observe the theatre of life and death, and to pick apart the performances. And, more often than not, the players.  
It was the champagne, he's determined. It must make him stupid. He's switched to whiskey. Much more dignified. Especially since, now, everyone's drinking martinis, and smoking cigars, as though this were a damn nightclub in the 1960's. How people love their artifice.  
But without that, Francis has no job.  
Hugo, Francis is pleased to see, has not succumbed to the martini trend. “I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot,” Francis says.  
“And I've somehow formed an erroneous impression of you? Tell me, then, Francis, what are you, if not a vulgar opportunist who can't take 'no' for an answer?”  
“Well, I don't think of myself as vulgar.”  
Hugo's mouth twitches like galvanized tissue. It's almost a smile. “No. I don't suppose you do.”  
“I recall that you told me, once, that nature needed to be overthrown. What did you mean by this?”  
“That death is not the end. It's not even an intermission. It's a hiccup. A bubble. A flaw. The natural state of the human body is to be alive.”  
“Yes.”  
“So, why not keep it alive?”  
“Yes, but nothing lasts forever.”  
Hugo narrows his eyes. “Why not?” he all but pouts.  
“Cells are damaged, they die, they must be renewed. At a certain point, the underlying genetic material is so corrupted by age and by repeated transcription that these errors cause catastrophic failure. In this case, the corrupted material can, and must, simply be removed; replaced with something new.”  
“And when that fails?”  
“You keep doing it. Cloning, of course, offers an unending supply of prima materia; stem cells-”  
“You're boring me, Francis.”  
“Yes, well, with such lofty conceits on the brain, of course, real science will have less of a shine. Are you a scientist, Hugo, or are you some kind of philosopher?”  
“What do you want?”  
“What do I want?”  
“Yes. Why do you continue to pursue me?”  
Francis shrugs. “I like nice things. It's a matter of appetite, as opposed to devotion. I don't think about you at any other time of the year. When I see you, though, I remember how nice it is to want you.”  
“You're vile.”  
“I've been called worse.”  
“You have a room here, I take it.”  
“I must. I no longer live in the city, and as late as these occasions carry on, the last thing I want to do is endure the journey home.”  
“Take me there.”  
“To my home?”  
“No,” Hugo sneers, “I have no interest in your home. Take me to your hotel room.”  
They don't even make it to the room. Strange pushes the emergency stop button and goes down on him in the damn lift. By the time they do get there, Francis is feeling pleasantly heavy, gently tired. Revoltingly tender. He is, he's sure, being taken advantage of. It's some psychiatrist's trick. He's been drugged. With his own neurochemicals. He hadn't planned to go this far, but he allows Hugo to kiss him on the mouth, take off his clothes. Fuck him on his bed. Just as he's breaking through the fog sufficiently to get annoyed by the thought of wet bedding, Hugo changes his position slightly, and Francis finds himself unable to think of anything but what they're doing. Even this isn't truly thought; it's simply keen awareness. Only later will any cast of language be thrown over his memories. By then, it'll be too late. He'll always be naked, here; bare sensation uncovered by analysis. It's only later, shaken suddenly from sleep, that it'll even occur to him to be concerned that they had unprotected sex. Venereal diseases are, of course, now, curable, or at least have effective treatments. Save one. Francis must confess, though, that he finds it too interesting to have the required awe and terror of it. What must it be to have one's cells turn traitor and be converted; to, essentially, become a disease? How much of the individual remains? Of course, it's not the disease, itself, that kills, but the other conditions it lets proliferate in an organism stripped of its defenses. It's really a very stupid model for a disease; even syphilis has an extended latency, allowing for a greater period of possible transmission. It's only, Francis supposes, its connection to sex that gives it any power, at all. Even in the face of death, humans will keep fucking. Maybe with all the more urgency, when death is so near.

97  
Awkward scenes are such a pleasure. When he was young, Francis was so formal; anything that forced him out of the mold of etiquette was painful. Fortunately, since then, he's learned to be more flexible. Now, it's fun to watch others cast about for a solution to problems that polite society can't even name. And when he finds himself prey to those old pangs of anxiety, that's a pleasure, too.  
Strange is holding court. Lording it over some of the Wayne company's new hires. They must be new. They're too young to be anything else. Francis slips into the little knot of bodies; easily, because he's taller than most of them. Strange has been given a promotion. It's trivial, but Strange is a trivial person, so this is something to savor.  
“I heard about your new position,” Francis says, just loud enough to break the flow of Hugo's speech, “Congratulations.”  
“Thank you,” Hugo says stiffly, and tries to reembark his train of thought.  
“But you know,” Francis said, “I rather liked you in the position you were in the last time we met.”  
Someone clears their throat. The group dissolves, leaving Hugo with no one to look at but Francis.  
“What do you want?”  
“Can't an old friend wish you well?”  
“You may be old, but we're certainly not friends.”  
“That's beneath you, Hugo.”  
“So many things are.”  
“I could be again.”  
“Don't you ever tire of debasing yourself?”  
“It's one of the few things I never tire of.”  
But Hugo won't be moved. Intimacy makes everyone behave oddly. Show too much, and then cover up everything. It's part of being human, Francis supposes; what separates us from the animals. It's only we, among all creatures, that find our natural state repulsive. Only we, who have spent eons running as fast and as far from ourselves as possible. Still- it makes for something to talk about at cocktail parties.

98  
At last, the mystery's solved. Strange has brought a party favor.  
“Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, Hugo?”  
“Thomas Wayne,” Hugo says flatly, “this is Francis Dulmacher.”  
“Yes,” says Wayne, his manner unpleasantly... something, “I know the name. You've done some unprecedented work pertaining to the problem of post-surgical blood clots.”  
“It's not so very complicated. It's a matter of promoting excitation: with trauma, the blood pools, then stagnates and, thus, it degrades. It's always an issue of degradation: leucocytes and hemocytes are allowed to separate; serum drains, and the rest forms a glue of excessive protein. I advocate the strict maintenance of blood pressure, as well as the renovation of blood, as much as is possible, without causing unusual stress to the patient.”  
Wayne frowns. “What do you mean, exactly, by renovation of blood?”  
“I mean exactly what you think I mean: old blood must come out, and new blood must come in. I first witnessed this effect in patients who were showing early signs of anemia after extensive surgical procedures. With transfusion came an unexpected renewal.”  
“Well, you treated the anemia.”  
“Yes, I attributed it to this, at first, but when I transfused patients in whom it wasn't medically necessary, I noticed still more pronounced results. Healing was faster, and more complete. The incisions healed, sometimes, seamlessly.”  
“You know that what you're proposing is laughable,” Hugo says.  
“I was going to say dangerous and irresponsible,” Wayne replies.  
How delightful. “My patients don't seem to think so,” Francis says, “For this, among other things, I'm famous.”  
“Not that famous,” Wayne says, “because I'd certainly never heard about it.”  
“Well, how could you? It's not something I advertise openly. Suddenly, everyone would want to have their blood changed, like it was the seventies again. Can you imagine?” he chuckles, “In order for this treatment to have any meaning, the body must first suffer a shock- surgery works well, because it has a purpose, it's not wanton destruction, and it can be controlled.”  
“That doesn't sound very controlled to me.”  
“I invite you to watch me work sometime. After, of course, you've signed the necessary documents. I wouldn't let a fox into my hen house if I weren't armed.”  
“Thank you for the offer,” Wayne says coldly, then makes his excuses.  
“That was childish,” Hugo says.  
“Well, he is a child.”  
“He's not much younger than you are.”  
“I meant temperamentally. He has the world view of a child. Wholly unsuitable for someone who's going to take on the beast that employs you.”  
“His name is on the building; they can hardly leave him out in the cold.”  
“A prudent man would make sure that he was steering the man who steered the ship, if you get my meaning.”  
Hugo raises his eyebrows. “Are you trying to entrap me, or just fishing for information?”  
“Can't I do both?”  
“Not with any degree of subtlety. Though, you can't really do anything with any degree of subtlety.”  
“Forget about the little heir to the throne. Come upstairs with me.”  
“As charming as the offer is, I think I'll stay where I am.”  
“Golden boys tarnish, Hugo.”  
“Better that than to have never touched anything precious at all.”  
There's something off about Hugo's expression. Francis can't read it. It's almost sad. How off-putting.  
“I'll leave you to it, then,” Francis says.  
How utterly alien, like suddenly encountering an unexpected and unwelcome texture. Better that Francis not know. Even his curiosity has a limit.

99  
He was going to stay home this year, but they've asked him to speak. To refuse would put him in an awkward position. Francis has never feared awkwardness, and has less and less distaste for it, the older he gets, but he's a professional. Sometimes, to be a professional, one must act the whore.  
After his little speech, they honor him with an award of some kind, and really, they're too, too kind. It's easy to say. With the amount he's been drinking, it's easy to almost mean it. A strange tenderness eats into his center, like a blooming bruise. He's touched.  
“Can we do without the sniping this year?” he asks Hugo. He finds him by the bar. The little prince is nowhere in sight.  
“I thought that was your favorite part.”  
“No. You know which is my favorite part.”  
Maybe Hugo's lonely. Maybe he's bitter. Maybe he's actually charmed. Whatever he is, Francis gets him into the lift, where, like drugged participants in an arcane ritual, the mind unmoored from the body, they close together as two doors. They sink to the floor just as the tone sounds for their stop.  
In Francis' room, they kneel again, and then fall lower still. He rolls onto his back, so that Hugo's on top of him. Like this, he lets Hugo get as far as a hand in his trousers.  
“Get up,” Francis says, “I'm too old to actually fuck on the floor.”  
“How do you want me?” Hugo asks in the tone of costume flatness that signals either genuine boredom, or an interest so great it must be disguised. His face always says boredom, but his body says otherwise. He allows Francis to undress him, to kiss him, to move him around.  
“Do you think you can bear my weight?” Francis asks.  
Hugo's quiet, his face in total repose for a moment, as he considers it. “I think I could.”  
“Sit in that chair. Please,” he adds, because it costs nothing to be polite.  
It's not a smooth procedure. He's not very flexible anymore. His shirt gets in the way, but he doesn't want to take it off. There's a lot of unpleasant shifting. Even lubricated, there's far too much friction to allow his movements any fluidity. But once he manages it, Hugo completely inside of him, and all is as it should be, the aches fall away. Hugo's holding his hips, moving him. The tip of his cock is rubbing against his shirt, leaving a spreading patch of wetness. His testicles feel as though they're in a vise. Nothing has ever been of such vital importance as Hugo's cock in his ass. He tightens around it, and Hugo pushes up, bruisingly hard. He's nothing but a scraped nerve, untwined, shredded, raw. The distinction between pleasure and pain is merely cosmetic.  
It's close enough to simultaneous orgasm to be pleasingly absurd. Evoking all of those ridiculous memories from youth. The things you dream about when your body's new, and you believe it capable only of wonderful things. But bodies will fail.  
It's a good thing, too.  
If it weren't for the inability of the body to maintain its integrity, well, you wouldn't be here, now, would you?

2000  
Post-coital lassitude lasts a whole year. When he finds Hugo, he's not looking for a fuck. If Hugo offers, he's willing to be convinced. But he's not looking.  
He begins talking as though they'd been conversing this whole time. Something's stuck in his head, something related to what Hugo's said in the past, to him, or to a publication, or possibly, only in Francis' mind.  
Francis asks: “At what point, though, is it no longer enough to reverse death? Or to inoculate the body against it?”  
“I don't know what you mean.”  
“At what point, are we no longer satisfied with conquering genetic destiny? What happens when we want to be done with it, altogether? To breed death out of the human race? Do we not, at that point, cease to be human?”  
“Maybe so,” Hugo shrugs, “Would that be so bad?”  
“It depends on what we become next. At the very least, it means that you and I would be out of a job. And what, I wonder would become us of, then?”  
“We won't know until we make it happen. Are you going to let fear of obsolescence curtail your efforts, Francis?”  
“Are you?”  
“I asked first.”  
Francis laughs. “Of course not. But then, I'm not the one proposing a total break from humanity.”  
“Maybe I simply believe that humanity can be more, more than, than-”  
“Than us, you mean? Than the childish insistence that we're somehow significant, that all of this electrified meat is divine?”  
“And do you believe that? Would it be so easy to slot organs in and out like modular furniture if you honestly thought that there was such a thing as the soul? Could you bear such a belief? What do you believe in, Francis?”  
“Most likely the same things you do.”  
“Which are?” The question's filed down. Is it, actually, an honest inquiry? Has he finally found the place where Hugo's equilibrium lacks, and he's ready to fall, to fall and break?  
Perhaps it's that place for him, as well. Very gently, so much so, he hardly recognizes the sound of his own voice, he answers: “When I figure that out, you shall be the first to know.”


End file.
